“A Encantação pelo Riso” (Invocation by Laughter) by André Vallias

The André Vallias digital poem ” A Encantação pelo Riso” is inspired by Cubo-Futurist poem “Invocation by Laughter” published in 1910 by russian poet Vielimir Klebnikov and translated into portuguese by Haroldo de Campos in 1985. The original poem presents a new semantic system based on the words decomposition and phonetic experimentation resulting in a work with a strong sonorous appeal.

“A Encantação pelo Riso”(2003) of Vallias can be considered a sample of computer-animated poetry and despite its low interactivity, it presents a dynamic visual structure based on typographic forms, graphics and sound effects.
The digital poem created with Flash software animation is divided into two acts. The first presents a kinetic typographic verses with a Russian voiceover of the poem as a background and the second shows an animation from graphical diagrams that changes during the narration of the poem in portuguese. At the end of the last act, the screen displays the verse “R(IR)” that allows the new exhibition of the poem and the interactor hears a laugh.

This is the kind of work that shows the many faces of translation. Here, visual codes, sounding, and linguistics blend cultural codes whose boundaries are diluted in the digital medium.